Category: Research Highlights

Chinese international students’ wellbeing: Experiences of assessment in higher education

Research Highlighted:

Dai, Q. (2023). Chinese international students’ wellbeing: Experiences of assessment in higher education. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 22(2), 118–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/14788047231194173

About the study:

While there is growing research identifying the academic and non-academic challenges to the well-being of Chinese international students, there is little discussion about the differences in and challenges of the assessment they experience. This gap appears to come from a tacit assumption that assessment is universal worldwide, or that students will automatically learn strategies to deal with all the contrasts in assessment themselves. Although, as a Chinese student studying in a master’s programme in the UK in 2019, I experienced considerable differences in assessment between Chinese and British universities and my Chinese peers often expressed their unfamiliarity with various aspects of assessment and sometimes discontent with the ambiguity in assessment. Also, while outcomes of assessment in universities, such as marks, are closely related to resulting academic and career opportunities, according to Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), cultural capital or habitus is misrecognized as individual academic achievement through hegemonic assessment. So, this research aims to provide a close examination of the differences in and challenges of assessment facing Chinese internationals from an insider’s point of view. This research is a Chinese international master’s student’s effort to do research with, about and for international students.

Also, many existing studies and practice in internationalisation of UK Higher Education (HE) adopt a deficit approach that attributes international students’ experiences of challenges to their lack of capabilities, thus responsibilising international students only to adapt to the host environments (Andrade, 2017; Mittelmeier et al., 2022). This reductionist approach also (re)produces a dichotomous and static stereotype that Confucian Heritage Culture and Chinese education are contradictory to Western values and Western educational practice (Tu, 2018). So, as a counter-discourse, this research is developed on the concept of “academic hospitality” aiming to develop a reciprocal relationship between academic “hosts” and “guests” (Dorsett, 2017) and challenge the static dichotomous discourses. For instance, Heng (2017) proposed that fostering meaningful conversations between individuals of diverse backgrounds can challenge established parochialism and develop a recognition of, acceptance of, and respect for multiple identities and diverse cultures and ways of knowledge production. So, this research is an international master’s student’s act of epistemic disobedience to counter the deficit approach to the internationalisation of UK HE and contribute to the decolonisation of UK HE by challenging its neo-colonialist assumptions of universality in assessment.

This research explored Chinese international students’ experience of assessment in the UK, specifically their experienced differences in, and challenges of assessment, correspondingly, their adopted strategies and the institutional support they required. Answers are sought by examining relevant literature and by interviewing thirteen Chinese postgraduate-taught students majoring in different subjects at a Scottish University. 

Findings and implications:

Most Chinese students in this research were surprised and confused about the variety of assessment formats they experienced in the UK, especially the oral assessment and group work. Even when formats were familiar to them, the expected answers to the assessment were largely diverse from their previous experience. Specifically, all participants believed that expressing themselves in academic English under time pressure or word limit was the most challenging, such as the acceptable extent of inclusion of personal views, applications of concrete examples, and correct referencing to avoid plagiarism. None of them was confident enough to apply critical thinking, reading, and writing to various types of assessments in the UK. Also, most students felt unaccustomed to the autonomy of the exam preparation and coursework writing, so some of them failed the assessment and might suffer from depression. A deficit stereotype of Chinese students is refuted by the comprehensive understanding of Chinese transmissive education and empirical findings. This research, in line with Heng’s (2019) developmental perspective, showed that while they identified various challenges of assessment, there was a clear process of improvement among all participants, such as growing familiarity with and confidence in the different assessment formats, clarity of the expected answers, and more advanced linguistic capability.

Concerning assessment, most Chinese students used similar strategies when they first encountered assessment in British universities, and the influence on their performance varied among individuals. However, supported by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (Ploner, 2018) and Heng’s (2019) developmental perspective, participants developed new strategies when they realized the diverse expectations. Firstly, the significance of autonomous learning in British universities had a great impact on their preparation strategies and academic performance, such as significantly more use of the recommended reading and resources searched by themselves compared to their previous experience in China. Secondly, while most of them studied alone in Chinese universities, all of them considered social support as the main source and strategy to meet the challenging assessment in the UK, including their co-nationals, other internationals and tutors. Thirdly, apart from other positive strategies, such as time-management skills and making realistic plans, some students also adopted desperate methods in their assessments, such as the overuse of online translation tools. 

In terms of institutional support, participants suggested ongoing support for assessment from the whole university, ranging from lecturers, tutors, and academic services to international student services. Among the specific institutional support in the forms of special guidance, lectures, workshops and tutorials, most Chinese internationals highlighted the clarification of expected answers and assessment criteria, such as the extent of inclusion of personal views. Some students also suggested the provision of samples of and practical guidance on the unfamiliar format, and some thought mock exams or formative assessments with effective feedback from tutors and peers would benefit them considerably. Linguistic support in a combination of rich forms was mentioned by all and considered the most imperative support, including strategies and methods to find appropriate academic sources, practical guidance on critical thinking, reading and writing, correct referencing and effective paraphrasing. Also, students recommended training for the teaching staff and the provision of pressure-reducing activities throughout the academic year. Finally, almost all of them advised universities not only to focus on the establishment of campus resources but also to devote energy to the motivation of international students and help them to use resources effectively, such as the group revision and mentoring program provided by universities to ensure good practice shared among students.

International students’ experiences in assessment, including their challenges, growth, strategies and required institutional support, can be used as valuable resources for HE practitioners and researchers to develop culturally relevant pedagogy and for UK HE institutions to decolonise HE. This way, ‘institutions are involving international students in conversations with them, not about them’ (Heng, 2017, p. 847), otherwise ending up in commercialized education that (re)produces stereotypes about them (Dorsett, 2017).

References:

Andrade, M. (2017). Institutional policies and practices for admitting, assessing, and tracking international students. Journal of International Students, 7(1): I–VI.

Bourdieu, P., and Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (2nd ed.) (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage Publications, Inc.

Dorsett, J. (2017). High hopes: International student expectations for studying in the United States. New Directions for Student Services, 2017(158): 9–21.

Heng, T. (2017) Voices of Chinese international students in USA colleges: ‘I want to tell them that … ’. Studies in Higher Education, 42(5): 833–850.

Heng, T. (2019) Understanding the Heterogeneity of International Students’ Experiences: A Case Study of Chinese International Students in U.S. Universities. Journal of Studies in International Education, 23(5): 607–623.

Mittelmeier, J., Lomer, S., Al Furqani, S., and Huang, D. 2022. Internationalisation and students’ outcomes or experiences: A review of the literature 2011-2021. Advance HE.

Ploner, J. (2018). International students’ transitions to UK higher education – revisiting the concept and practice of academic hospitality. Journal of Research in International Education, 17(2): 164–178.

Tu, H. (2018). English Versus Native Language on Social Media: International Students’ Cultural Adaptation in the U. S. Journal of International Students, 8(4): 1709–1721.

Author Biography:

Qiao Dai, University of Glasgow

Qiao Dai is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, where she also works as an Associate Tutor. Her PhD research looks at the role of UK International Higher Education in Chinese womanhood between China and the UK. Her research interests generally can be situated in three strands, namely feminisms, international HE, and postcolonial knowledge production and creative inquiry. She can be contacted via email: qiao.dai@glasgow.ac.uk.

Managing Editor: Tong Meng

Understanding Chinese International Students in the U.S. in Times of the COVID-19 Crisis: From a Chinese Discourse Studies Perspective

Yu, J. (2023a). Understanding Chinese International Students in the U.S. in Times of the COVID-19 Crisis: From a Chinese Discourse Studies Perspective. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 18(1), 45-61.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2023.2214538

Against the background of the harsh realities of a deeply unequal global landscape, international student mobility is highly asymmetrical and unidirectional from developing countries to Western universities, primarily to English-speaking destinations (Beech 2019; Marginson 2006). However, the flow of global knowledge is opposite from the American-Western metropolitan centers to the rest of the world, which has been reproduced by accredited higher education institutions and solidified in mass media, press, and publications (Shi-xu 2014). Such one-way academic student mobility not only satisfies host countries’ immediate demands of economic gains, but also naturalizes Western ways of knowing through language, pedagogy, and academic research.

When it comes to the research of international education, particularly among Chinese international students in European and North American universities, the given divergent conceptualizations of thinking between the East and West can be traced back to Hofstede’s cultural studies. In his cultural dimensions, the Eastern and Western people have simply been categorized into the seemingly ‘scientific’ categorizations of collectivism vs. individualism, indirectness vs. directness, egalitarianism vs. hierarchy, masculinity vs. femininity, etc. (Hofstede 2001). Building on the ‘Hofstedian legacy’ (Holliday 2013, 6), theories of cultures of learning in education (Jin and Cortazzi 2011) and cultural foundations of learning in psychology (Li 2012) are successively developed to account for Chinese students’ various shocks and examine students’ difficulties in a new sociocultural context. Traditional cultural attributes seem to serve as the trouble-free, innocent, and normative explanations for human behaviors, but, in effect, they are manipulated to produce and reproduce a systematic discourse of scholarly hegemony. This false cultural profiling not only provides a mechanism for freezing the traits of the cultural group but also strengthens particular knowledge about Eastern images of the inferior Other based on the West-controlled hierarchies of cultures.

In addition, Western colonial/imperial politics of knowledge production is still prevalent and persistent in education research. Through knowledge production and reproduction, the West has intellectual authority over the Orient at the expense of silencing other forms of knowledge. Thus, the differentialist discourses on ‘culture’ play a decisive role in constructing the non-Western as culturally and morally deficient. By the same token, they offer contrasted images of the idealization of the Western Self (Bhabha 1994; Said 2003; Spivak 1988). Epistemic dominance compels researchers of color to believe that Western scholarship of valid knowledge development is the universal standard and norm. Western-centric thinking and long-standing patterns of symbolic violence are not disrupted but reproduced and reinforced through academic practices. To be specific, when doing research on international students from Confucian cultures in Western universities, educational researchers tend to focus on students’ barriers, difficulties, problems, and struggles in a new learning environment (e.g. Ching et al. 2017).

In this article, I draw on Chinese Discourse Studies (Shi-xu, 2014) as a theoretical framework to explore how Chinese international students as cultural agents respond to the global pandemic and pandemic-related stereotypes. To begin with, the primary theoretical mechanism underpinning Chinese Discourse Studies is to seek, create, and maintain societal harmony through a dialectic lens (Shi-xu 2014). There is no denying that after the century-old humiliation of foreign aggression in modern history, the top priority for contemporary China and Chinese people is economic development and social stability. To pursue this goal, Chinese people are accustomed to employing cognitive and discursive strategies to rejuvenate ancient civilization and reclaim their voice on the world stage.  Another essential principle underlying Chinese Discourse Studies is to express agreement and avoid extreme binary statements, which is premised on Confucian classics of the Golden Mean, zhongyong (中庸), and harmony, he (和). This salient feature is also reappropriated by the central government to strive to build a harmonious society in hopes of coping with social inequalities emerging in Chinese society (Han 2008). The third theoretical principle of Chinese Discourse Studies is ‘self-criticism first’ (Shi-xu 2014, 160). Chinese discourse culture operates under the rule of meaning production through self-retrospection and self-critique (自我批评 ziwo piping). Nevertheless, many symbolic characteristics, such as indirectness, vagueness, silence, complexity, and even contradiction, are often seen and heard in Chinese public discourse. They are often mistakenly interpreted as lacking in analytical or critical thinking and short of ‘I’ voice (Ramanathan and Kaplan 1996) from white Eurocentric perspectives in discourse studies.

Through a critical analysis of 21 Chinese international students’ narratives, this article identifies three culturally specific characteristics that pervade Chinese normative dialogues: (1) Chinese dialectics, (2) Chinese harmony, and (3) Chinese self-criticism. They are often employed to emphasize Chinese optimistic attitudes in times of crisis, avoidance of confrontation for harmonious communication, and moral character of self-introspection to conform to the social norm. These three culturally specific characteristics are interrelated and interconnected, and pervade Chinese normative discourses, which have long-time been mistakenly interpreted from Western-centric perspectives, theories, and approaches. This article offers new empirical evidence for the reconstruction of the Chinese paradigm of discourse studies and reveals the inappropriateness of Western scholarship for understanding non-Western linguistic and communicative events and practices.

In sum, this article demonstrates that Chinese discourse studies can be a potential decolonial option to depart from deep-seated scholarship in Western intellectual supremacy and a visionary framework to advance multicultural discourses about international education against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions and anti-Asian racism.

References:

Beech, S. E. 2019. The Geographies of International Student Mobility: Spaces, Places and Decision-Making. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bhabha, H. K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

Ching, Y. C., S. L. Renes, S. McMurrow, J. Simpson, and A. T. Strange. 2017. “Challenges Facing Chinese International Students Studying in the United States.” Educational Research Review 12: 473–482. doi:10.5897/ERR2016.3106

Han, A. G. 2008. “Building a Harmonious Society and Achieving Individual Harmony.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 13 (2): 143–164. doi:10.1007/s11366-008-9021-y

Holliday, A. 2013. Understanding Intercultural Communication: Negotiating a Grammar of Culture. London: Routledge.

Hofstede, G. 2001. Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Jin, L., and M. Cortazzi. 2011. Researching Chinese Learners: Skills, Perceptions and Intercultural Adaptation. Houndmills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Li, J. 2012. Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Marginson, S. 2006. “Dynamics of National and Global Competition in Higher Education.” Higher Education 52 (1): 1–39. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-7649-x

Ramanathan, V., and R. B. Kaplan. 1996. “Audience and Voice in Current L1 Composition Texts: Some Implications for ESL Student Writers.” Journal of Second Language Writing 5 (1): 21–34. doi:10. 1016/S1060-3743(96)90013-2

Said, E. W. 2003. Orientalism. 3rd ed. London: Penguin.

Shi-xu. 2014. Chinese Discourse Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Spivak, G. C. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, 271–313. London: Macmillan.

Authors’ Bio 

Jing Yu PhD, is an Assistant Professor of International Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a Faculty Affiliate in Asian American Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include international student mobility, intersections of race, class, and nationality, and international dimensions of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Her recent project on Chinese international students’ everyday racism and mental health issues has been successfully funded by the Spencer Foundation’s small research grants. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Diversity of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development (Research in Briefs), and Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.

Managing Editor: Xin Fan

What Has COVID-19 Taught Us: Advancing Chinese International Student-Related Research, Policies, and Practices Through Critical Race Perspectives

Research Highlighted: 

Yu, J. (2023b). What Has COVID-19 Taught Us: Advancing Chinese International Student-Related Research, Policies, and Practices Through Critical Race Perspectives. Teachers College Record, 125(6), 110-118. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681231190165

“I’m not excited about ‘going back to normal,’ because normal was the place where all the failures were for the kids I’m concerned about.” ― Gloria Ladson-Billings (December 20, 2020)

As we are ramping up to the return of in-person events in the post-pandemic environment, Gloria Ladson-Billings, a critical race theory scholar, reminds us that the COVID-19 pandemic should be a transformative opportunity that forces us to break with the past and imagine the world anew. For the field of international higher education, this call is right on time. Due to the unprecedented pandemic, international activities, especially cross-border student mobility, have been disproportionately impacted (Mok et al., 2021; Yu, 2021a). As the largest international student group in U.S. higher education, Chinese students have been made particularly vulnerable due to the resurgence of anti-Asian racism and U.S.-China geopolitical tensions. There is therefore a pressing need to make sense of Chinese international students’ perspectives and experiences around U.S. higher education—and in doing so, to highlight the ever-present educational inequalities rooted in academic capitalism, global unevenness, and institutional racism.

This article builds on the results of a critical qualitative research project investigating Chinese international students’ agency, decision-making, and perceptions of race, racism, and power (Yu, 2021a, 2021b, 2022a, 2022b, 2023a, Under Review abc). Drawing from interdisciplinary studies of international education, Asian American studies, sociology, and migration studies, this research project brings critical race perspectives to understanding Chinese students’ transnational mobilities and practices. It aims to unveil global hierarchies and racial inequalities in the field of international education in order to help advance future research and open new paths to practice.

Ideas for Critical Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the neoliberal model of international education is falling apart (De Wit, 2020). There is a renewed interest in and urgency for educators, scholars, and practitioners to rethink the field of international higher education through a critical race lens. In considering the theoretical implications of this fact for research, ethical and political dimensions should be centrally incorporated to ponder the issues of rights, responsibility, justice, and equity within international higher education. In recent years, more and more scholars have reset the research agenda and have started to critically reflect on international student mobility (Stein, 2017; Yang, 2020) and academic knowledge production (Kubota, 2020; Shi-xu, 2014); however, theoretically sophisticated critical research on international students’ lived experiences with racism and racialization is still urgently needed. In response to this theoretical challenge, I put forward an innovative framework, Global Asian Critical Race Theory or GlobalAsianCrit (Yu, Under Reviewa), as a contribution that combines the key tenets in Asian Critical Race Theory (Iftikar & Museus, 2018) and Global Critical Race Theory (Christian, 2019). In this creative framework that I proposed, I incorporated both a racial/ethnic and a critical global view into CRT to help understand how global white supremacy has shaped the racial realities of Asian individuals and how racial oppression works differently in different geographical contexts.

Ideas for Equity-Driven Policies

The COVID-19 pandemic and the related rise of anti-Asian racism have also revealed that international students of color are excluded from equity and social justice discourses in U.S. higher education. Thus, institutional policies should start by including disaggregated data on international students’ racial, ethnic, and national identities, which enables colleges and universities to acknowledge the heterogeneity within the highly reductive federal category of “nonresident alien” and to understand the diverse nature of these students’ learning experiences. Disaggregating the data and exploring the heterogeneity within this diverse group of students will be helpful for policymakers, institutional leaders, faculty, staff, and administrators to identify the specific needs of these international students and to support their sustained success and development in the U.S.

In addition, despite the fact that diversity and inclusion are continuously advocated in U.S. higher education, international students have been largely absent from debates and discussions of anti-Blackness and anti-Asian sentiment, due to their status as foreign students and temporary residence. Given this history of exclusion and ethnic discrimination, institutional policies should include global perspectives to uphold principles of educational equality and social justice for international students.

Ideas for Inclusive Practices

Finally, I propose three practical strategies for appropriately supporting Chinese international students. First, open discussions of race, racism, and power need to be included in institutions’ orientation sessions for international students. My research (Yu, 2022a) demonstrates that there is a great discrepancy in Chinese students’ understanding of race and racism before and after their migration to the U.S. It is necessary to equip international students with basic racial knowledge, such as how to identify racist comments and where to seek institutional help when discrimination and racial stereotyping occur. Administrators and practitioners can provide much-needed space for open conversations and transparent communications around racialized incidents on campus. Moreover, providing general education courses on the sociohistorical background of race, racism, and free speech in the U.S. can help international students better understand the complex racial reality of U.S. institutions and the wider society.

Secondly, administrators and staff should use an asset-based approach to designing services and workshops for international students on campus. While various activities are designed for international students to quickly adapt to U.S. campus culture, most available programs tend to be based on a deficit mindset of Chinese students or rooted in racialized logic. The asset-based practices that I recommend are intentional ways of acknowledging and leveraging the strengths of international students, including their everyday experiences, knowledge, and cultural practices to serve as resources for teaching and learning. Domestic students should not be excluded from these events and activities, for critical cultural awareness and cross-cultural communicative skills are essential qualities for all students to work with people from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds in future various professional situations.

Thirdly, colleges and universities should structurally facilitate international students’ engagement with domestic students and wider local communities. My research (Yu, 2022b) shows that Chinese students may express prejudicial attitudes toward other people of color, especially African Americans. More interracial contact can help both international and domestic students disrupt their stereotypes about one another. Hence, this form of support for international students can foster their sense of belonging or cohesiveness in a specific campus organization or activity. U.S. institutions should take shared responsibility to reinvest some of the income generated by international student tuition toward creating and supporting inclusive student clubs and extracurricular activities.

Conclusion

It is clear that Chinese international students are “raced” in the U.S., so instead of demanding that students conform to the oppressive social norms and meet the academic expectations of the (white) host learning environment, social justice efforts should be made to interrupt hegemonic thinking and complicate notions of race and racism by looking beyond the limited understanding of these concepts within U.S. borders. As Gloria Ladson-Billings reminded us, the COVID-19 pandemic can be a portal, a gateway to imagine a new world for K-12 schools as well as international higher education. 

References:

Christian, M. (2019). A global critical race and racism framework: Racial entanglements and deep and malleable whiteness. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 5(2), 169–185.

De Wit, H (2020). Internationalization of higher education: The need for a more ethical and qualitative approach. Journal of International Students 10(1), i–iv.

Iftikar, J. S., & Museus, S. D. (2018). On the utility of Asian critical (AsianCrit) theory in the field of education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(10), 935-949.

Mok, K. H., Xiong, W., Ke, G., & Cheung, J. O. W. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on international higher education and student mobility: Students perspectives from mainland China and Hong Kong. International Journal of Education Research, 105, 101718.

Stein, S. (2017). Internationalization for an uncertain future: Tensions, paradoxes, and possibilities. Review of Higher Education, 41(1), 3–32.

Yang, P. (2020). Toward a framework for (re)thinking the ethics and politics of international student mobility. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(5), 518–534.

Yu, J. (2021a). Lost in lockdown? The impact of COVID-19 on Chinese international student mobility in the US. Journal of International Students, 11(S2), 1-18.

Yu, J. (2021b). Caught in the middle? Chinese international students’ self-formation amid politics and pandemic. International Journal of Chinese Education, 10(3), 1-15.

Yu, J. (2022a). The racial learning of Chinese international students in the US context: A transnational perspective. Race, Ethnicity and Education. Advance Online Publication https:// doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2106878

Yu, J. (2022b). “I don’t think it can solve any problems”: Chinese international students’ perceptions of racial justice movements during COVID-19. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance Online Publication https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000457

Yu, J. (2023a). Understanding Chinese international students in the U.S. in times of the COVID-19 crisis: From a Chinese discourse studies perspective. Journal of Multicultural Discourses. Advance Online Publication https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2023.2214538

Yu, J. (Under Reviewa). Exploring Chinese international students’ experiences in times of crisis through Global Asian Critical Race Theory.

Yu, J. (Under Reviewb). “Asians are at the bottom of the society”: Chinese international students’ perspectives on Asian Americans in the U.S. racial hierarchy.

Yu, J. (Under Reviewc). #YouAreWelcomeHere? The two faces of American higher education toward Chinese international students.

Authors’ Bio 

Jing Yu PhD, is an Assistant Professor of International Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a Faculty Affiliate in Asian American Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include international student mobility, intersections of race, class, and nationality, and international dimensions of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Her recent project on Chinese international students’ everyday racism and mental health issues has been successfully funded by the Spencer Foundation’s small research grants. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Diversity of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development (Research in Briefs), and Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.

Managing Editor: Xin Fan

Micro-processes of knowledge sharing in higher education: international students as a source

Yunxin Luo (2023): Micro-processes of knowledge sharing in higher education: international students as a source, Studies in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2023.2253457

Knowledge sharing is seen as a process involving the donation or collection of knowledge by both the provider and the recipient (Tangaraja et al., 2016). In higher education, knowledge sharing involves faculty and students sharing their knowledge, experiences, insights, and ideas among themselves. International students are fundamental actors in the knowledge sharing process in higher education (Gamlath and Wilson 2022). They play an important role in enabling universities to generate new knowledge and innovation through their contribution to knowledge sharing, intercultural exchange and research (Singh 2009; Pagani et al. 2020; Luo, 2023). Currently, little is known about the knowledge activities of international students and how knowledge sharing processes unfold in higher education. To address these research gaps, this study takes the first step toward delineating the process of knowledge sharing by taking account of international students as knowledge source. This article show how they shape this process to provide more nuanced evidence to discuss the role of international students in knowledge sharing.

Research Method

Based on a qualitative approach, this article studied how the knowledge sharing process in higher education unfolds through the case of Chinese international students in Russian universities. Purposeful sampling techniques were used and a total of twenty-one Chinese students participated in the study. Data for the study came primarily from semi-structured interviews and triangulation of evidence through observation and literature review. In order to elicit specific knowledge-sharing experiences from international students, the critical incident technique was used. Data analysis involves a constant comparison between data and emerging theoretical structures, and a three-step process is used to analyze the data.

Findings

The results of this study, firstly, clarify the knowledge roles of international students. That is, international students are not only knowledge receivers but also knowledge providers. We found that international students are not ‘deficits’, rather they have developed or embedded knowledge and are shaping multicultural exchanges. Secondly, the article sheds light on the micro-processes that take place during knowledge sharing in higher education institutions. The results of this study were synthesized into a proposed model of the knowledge sharing process, describing the activities and four stages associated with knowledge sharing for international students: Prerequisite, Initiation, Unidirectional sharing and Evaluation. We found that international students are influenced by key factors in the knowledge sharing process, and the relative weights of each factor vary across the four stages of knowledge sharing. We also found that knowledge sharing by international students in higher education institutions is a gradual and dynamic process. There may be a shift from one-way providing to two-way exchange during this process.

The result of the current study provides a starting point for subsequent research in knowledge management and higher education. This study elaborated on the processes of knowledge sharing that have not been investigated in previous studies, and the results contribute to understanding the knowledge roles and behaviors of international students. This study provides information on how to provide support at each identified stage to facilitate knowledge sharing by international students. Higher education needs to move away from deficit thinking and adopt a more inclusive and multicultural approach to supporting international students (Nada and Araújo, 2019) to facilitate knowledge sharing among international students and to promote a virtuous cycle of knowledge communication in higher education.

References

Tangaraja, Gangeswari, Roziah Mohd Rasdi, Bahaman Abu Samah, and Maimunah Ismail. 2016. “Knowledge Sharing is Knowledge Transfer: A Misconception in the Literature.” Journal of Knowledge Management 20 (4): 653–70. https:// doi.org/10.1108/JKM-11-2015-0427.

Singh, Michael. 2009. “Using Chinese Knowledge in Internationalising Research Education: Jacques Rancière, an Ignorant Supervisor and Doctoral Students from China.” Globalisation, Societies and Education 7 (2): 185–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767720902908034.

Pagani, Regina Negri, Bruno Ramond, Vander Luiz da Silva, Gilberto Zammar, and João Luiz Kovaleski. 2020. “Key Factors in University-to-University Knowledge and Technology Transfer on International Student Mobility.” Knowledge Management Research & Practice 18 (4): 405–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2019.1678415.

Gamlath, Sharmila, and Therese Wilson. 2022. “Dimensions of Student-to-Student Knowledge Sharing in Universities.” Knowledge Management Research & Practice 20 (4): 542–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2020.1838961.

Nada, Cosmin I., and Helena C. Araújo. 2019. “‘When You Welcome Students Without Borders, You Need a Mentality Without Borders’ Internationalisation of Higher Education: Evidence from Portugal.” Studies in Higher Education 44 (9): 1591–604. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1458219.

Luo, Yunxin. 2023. “International Student Mobility and its Broad Impact on Destination Countries: A Review and Agenda for Future Research.” Industry and Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/09504222221150766.

Author’s Bio

Yunxin Luo, Saint-Petersburg University

Yunxin Luo is a PhD candidate in Economic and Management program at the Saint-Petersburg University. She pursued her bachelor’s degree in Management at Henan University (China) and master’s degree in Education at the University of Adelaide (Australia) before attending the Saint-Petersburg University (Russia) to pursue her PhD. Her research is interdisciplinary, and lies at international migration, global mobility, human capital circulation, knowledge management, with the focus on international students and young talents. Her recent publications appear in journals such as Studies in Higher Education, International Journal of Consumer Studies, and Industry and Higher Education.

Email: luoyx627@gmail.com

ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9562-1376

Managing Editor: Tong Meng

A Three-dimensional Multi-world Framework for Examining Cross-cultural Experiences of International Doctoral Students

Research Highlighted: 

Yang, Y., & MacCallum, J. (2022). A three-dimensional multi-world framework for examining cross-cultural experiences of international doctoral students. Studies in Continuing Education, 44(3), 493-509. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2021.1890569 

Introduction 

International doctoral students encounter constant and varied challenges, old and new, while studying abroad. To gain insight into the nature of experiences of doing a PhD abroad, this paper presents a three-dimensional multi-world conceptual framework, illustrated with an in-depth case study. The study is based on a broader narrative inquiry that aimed to understand influences that facilitate or constrain students’ positive and timely completion of a PhD abroad.  

The literature 

There are three main lines of research on doing a PhD and doing it abroad: (a) doctoral supervision in research; (b) student factors in achieving a PhD abroad; and (c) the social aspect of international doctoral students in the host community. Studies highlight the inherent challenge of achieving a PhD and achieving it in a cross-cultural context. We recognise three areas need further research: (a) the evolving nature of students’ experiences; (b) the situated nature when interpreting an individual student experiences; and (c) the interactive nature of international doctoral study. In short, we know certain factors influencing doing a PhD abroad; we are yet to know how these factors in combination affect student experiences.  

Constructing a three-dimensional multi-world framework 

Acknowledging previous conceptualisations and their limitations, the conceptual framework (Fig. 1) comprises a multi-world (Research-Personal-Social worlds) model, a dynamic mechanism that highlights transitions across borders, and a three-dimensional CIS (Continuity-Interaction-Situation) space that contains the multi-worlds and the transitions.  

Fig 1. The three-dimensional multi-world framework 

Component I: The multi-world model 

From the literature and our data analysis, we conceptualised research, personal, and social as indicative of three ‘worlds’ – meaning cultural spaces for individual and communal beings and doings in this study – that encompassed doctoral experiences. These worlds are all interconnected and intertwined, partly contingent upon and partly independent of each other. 

Component II: Transitions across and borders in-between 

In the three-dimensional multi-world framework, there are overlapping areas as experiential interfaces where transitions occur and lines in-between as borders, or boundaries, to cross. Hypothetically, harmonious/congruent interrelationships, or smooth transitions, between the worlds enable multilateral growth and sustainability, whereas incongruent relationships may cause negative impacts in the multi-worlds. 

  1. Component III: The three-dimensional CIS space 

The framework also sets a three-dimensional Continuity-Interaction-Situation space to contain a student’s multi-worlds and transitions across over time. The framework conceptualises experiences in an educational setting: continuity and interaction, which underline the co-existence and the interplay of the person and contexts. As experiences occur in specific spaces and sequences of spaces, Situation is drawn as a third dimension to formulate the three-dimensional inquiry space. 

Method 

Yuyan (pseudonym), a female student from China was chosen for this study to  illuminate the affordances of the framework. Her experience represents both typical and atypical features of participants in the overall project with Chinese international STEM PhD students.  

Results 

Before presenting findings from the perspective of the three-dimensional multi-world framework, we developed a cameo to preserve the fidelity and coherence of Yuyan’s experience before, during, and after the PhD abroad. With this as background, we presented the framework-underpinned analysis and incorporated discussion in the subtitles below.  

Research, personal, and social worlds of doing a PhD abroad 

  • Research world: Support, opportunities, and recognition count 

A research world has its expectations for the attainment of a PhD, engaging both perceptible and imperceptible factors to facilitate or constrain achievement. In Yuyan’s case, the perceptible aspects include supervisors, peers, institutional support, research facilities, and external connections; whereas the imperceptible aspects involve collaboration, facilitation, communication, and time.   

  • Personal world: Philosophy and perseverance count 

In the personal world, an international student exercises agency traversing from the personal world to other worlds to attain the PhD abroad. A personal world involves what a student brings from pre-PhD into the PhD, e.g., values, beliefs, motivations, and expectations; it also encompasses how the transformation occurs in the process of the PhD, e.g., in Yuyan’s case, growing into an independent researcher with a vision to embrace multiculturalism. 

  • Social world: Connection and integration count 

For an international doctoral student, the social world is not only about music, games, romance, and social events; it is also about, even more importantly, two-way communication and accommodation of different cultures, customs, and perspectives in both academic and social settings. While doing the PhD abroad, Yuyan’s social world was mainly shaped by a collective social space from both of her academic and social networks. 

Transitions across borders between the multi-worlds 

  • Transitions across research and personal worlds: ‘A swaying journey’ 

With a dramatic change from an undergraduate to a PhD, Yuyan’s transitions across the research world had been extremely difficult, particularly at the initial stage. She recounted she had been through ‘a swaying journey’, struggling between a frequent change of feeling confident and lacking in confidence, all depending on the progress of research. 

  • Transitions across personal and social worlds: ‘Chou Tong Chun Yi’ 

Yuyan exercised strong agency to achieve transitions between her personal and social worlds in the host community. She conceded it was easy to stay in the comfort zone with her conational networks, but to create harmonious relationships with the host community, Yuyan attended and even proactively organised social activities with her peers and staff members. 

  • Congruence relieves emotional ‘down’ moments 

While Yuyan had to manage linguistic, academic, sociocultural, socio-economic, and gender challenges while doing the PhD abroad in a male-dominated engineering field, the congruence with doctoral colleagues appeared to have helped her further crossing socio-emotional and psychosocial borders between the multi-worlds. 

Continuous, interactive, and situated features of PhD abroad experiences  

  • Continuity: Change and transformation 

This dimension accentuates change and transformation over time, which are embedded in an evolving process of pursuing the education, enculturation, and socialisation. From China to Australia, from an undergraduate to a PhD, Yuyan’s experience exhibited how Yuyan, her supervisors, and many others modified the process to enable change and growth out of the PhD.  

  • Interaction: Congruence and relationships 

The dimension of interaction highlights the continual interplay of the research, personal, and social worlds, which provides opportunities for international doctoral students to develop interculturality and necessitate identity change through everyday engagement within the PhD community. Yuyan stressed that she had to interact with various others to progress her research because ‘it’s never a one-person’s battle’.  

  • Situated experiences: Self-sufficiency, innovation, and enjoyment 

This dimension underlines striking characteristics of situated experiences in terms of motivations, relationships, experiences, and time. With enhanced confidence, passion, and vision in research, Yuyan pursued after a higher goal to initiate an additional cutting-edge experiment towards the end of her PhD. 

Conclusion 

This paper contributed a three-dimensional multi-world conceptual framework to understand the complexity of achieving a PhD abroad in a holistic approach. The framework is expected to provide a conceptual foundation for future research and practical work engaged with international doctoral students. For research, the framework can be applied to examine the experiences of international students in different fields and at different levels, making comparisons of differences and congruence between the multi-worlds to identify commonalities and classify patterns from the uniqueness of each individual case. For educational practice, this framework provides supervisors and institutions with a way of thinking of international doctoral students from a more comprehensive perspective and in a continuous, interactive, and situative approach.  

Authors’ Bio 

Yibo Yang, Associate Professor, PhD, Deputy Dean for the International Organizations and Global Governance, School of International Studies, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. Her current research interests focus on internationalisation in higher education, international organizations, research methodologies, and academic writing.  

Judith MacCallum, Professor Emerita, PhD, College of Health and Education, Murdoch University, Australia. Her research and teaching interests focus on social interaction for learning and development, with emphasis on motivation, mentoring and professional learning.   

Managing Editor: Xin Fan